The Start of a Beautiful Alliance
by Brobdingnagian Pseudonym
Summary: William Holmes and Spencer Reid became friends in much the same way two rats in a snake exhibit would become friends. When you feel like the rest of the world is out to kill you, you tend to stick close to the first being of the same species you can find.


He wasn't Sherlock back then.

Caroline Holmes always called him Darling, no matter how upset she got with him or how much he pleaded. Both of which occurred quite often.

William Scott Holmes senior avoided acknowledging his existence whenever possible. But when he had no other option, he called his son Billy.

His brother referred to him as Idiot or My Idiot Brother or, when he was feeling especially affectionate, My Baby Brother Whose Idiocy Knows No Bounds.

The local bullies were fond of the nickname Fairy Princess but often settled for calling him Fag when time was short.

His friends didn't call him anything because he didn't have any. And he liked it that way. When you're alone, there's no one around to call you things that you aren't. When you're alone, there's no one to turn you into someone you're not.

But his birth certificate called him William Scott Holmes. For some reason, that had a tendency to matter to people. It didn't to him. William was never his name. He never really thought of himself as a William or a Bill or a Will. He didn't think of himself as anyone, actually.

Dr. Spencer Reid, on the other hand, was pretty much always Dr. Spencer Reid. He was only ten, so he hadn't yet gotten a doctorate degree. But he knew it was only a matter of time. He was still the same young genius with the same long-ish curly-ish brown hair and the same intelligent-yet-hopelessly-clueless warm brown eyes. He was just a bit rounder, a lot shorter and twice as lonely. Even back then it seemed that he had the knowledge of the ages locked up in that brain of his. Only back then, he wasn't yet sure what to do with it.

He met William on one of the less oppressively hot summer days. The older boy had just saved his ass from a mob of bullies.

"Hey!" Spencer called out as he struggled to catch up with him. It was a hopeless endeavor, as his bag was weighted down by at least twenty pounds of library books and William walked quite quickly.

"Hey, you in the..." He trailed off when he realized the boy whose name he had yet to learn wasn't wearing anything that made him particularly distinguishable from the late afternoon crowd of pedestrians. The only name he had was the one he heard the bullies use. But that seemed so... cruel.

"Fa-fairy princess!" He shouted, finally causing William to turn. He cringed apologetically, immediately regretting saying anything. "I-I'm sorry! I don't know you're name!"

William shrugged, standing by while Spencer hobbled towards him. "Call me anything. Except Fairy Princess or Billy." He seemed unfazed. But then again, he wore the same expression when he dislocated that bully's arm a few minutes ago.

"Well, I'd prefer to call you by your name."

"...William." He sighed wearily.

"William... That's my dad's name."

"Yeah, mine too. Seems to be the go to name for shit fathers." He said casually, shocking poor Spencer into silence. William was older than Spencer, but clearly not old enough to be using such language so easily. And what could he possibly know about Spencer's father? It occured to Spencer that he should be offended, but he hadn't yet decided on whether or not he was. William examined his face closely, apparently unaware of the palpable silence.

"You're bleeding." He murmured, looming far too close. Spencer felt as if he were submerged in the same tank as a shark. Logically, he knew that William had no reason to attack him the same way sharks don't delibrately attack humans. But, a large part of his mind couldn't ignore how he had tossed that poor brute like a frisbee.

William gently ran a fingertip over the wound. "Looks quite deep. Must have been one of their rings."

Without another word, he wiped off the residual blood onto the leg of his shorts and spun on his heel.

"Well." William stopped about a yard away. "Are you going to stand there all day?"

It wasn't until Spencer's lungs started burning that he realized he hadn't been breathing. He followed after the strange british boy without another thought. They had walked three blocks before he had even wondered where they were going.

"My house. Your mother will have a fit if she sees you all bruised and bloodied." William answered the question before Spencer had the chance to ask. "It was only a matter of time before you asked. Obvious, really."

"Yeah, I guess it was." He wondered briefly about the remark about his mother, but brushed it off. Lots of mothers worry. 'So, you're british?"

"Am I? I had no idea. I thought all that time I spent in london was just a holiday." Laughter glittered briefly in William's pale eyes and Spencer chuckled nervously along. "My parents have a summer home here in Vegas. God knows why. Who voluntarily spends summer in a desert?"

"More people than you'd think, actually. The city of Las Vegas gets a 64% increase in tourism during the summer months. Vacation season and all..." Spencer immediately regretted spouting out the statistic. He waited for some sort of cruel joke or backlash. But it never came.

"Hm. London's always infested with tourists. Most of which don't speak a word of english. Who visits a foreign country without bothering with the language. It's mindless."

"People don't usually have the time or resources. English is also one of the more difficult languages. It borrows so much from other languages that it becomes contradictory. There have been some attempts to regulate it, but some just make it more complicated."

They talked of linguistics for the rest of the walk. To both boys, it felt like the first time speaking to someone who knew the same language. For a few minutes, Spencer wasn't the genius in a world of idiots and William wasn't the runt of the family of geniuses.

Finally, they reached the small mansion which William referred to as a summer home. It was a massive, imposing place with stone pillars and a heavy mahogany door. Before Spencer could start down the stone pathway cutting through the lawn, William pulled him back behind a hedge.

"Not through the front door." The older boy murmured conspiratorially into his ear. "Follow me."

They slipped through a gap in the hedge and crouched down underneath the windowsills. They paused and peeked through windows like a couple of burglars. For a moment, Spencer wondered if they were.

"I thought you said this was your house?" Spencer squeaked, his legs protesting at having to hold such an unfamiliar position for so long.

"Hush" William warned, but it was too late. A window creaked open.

"What are you doing crawling about in the yard, Idiot Brother? You are aware that we have a perfectly functioning door, are you not?" A condescending voice spoke from above in precisely enunciated syllables. With a groan, William stood up from underneath the windowsill. Spencer shakily followed his lead.

"Hello, Mycroft." William ground out between gritted teeth. Mycroft was bigger than his brother. Not only in years and stature and weight, but in presence. He towered over the two boys voluminously, like a tsunami suspended inside a 6 foot, 250 pound young adult male. Spencer tried his best to disappear into the ground.

"And who is this? Making friends, are we?" Mycroft turned with toothy parody of a polite smile towards Spencer, who whimpered quietly.

"Don't be ridiculous. This is..." They both realized simultaneously that Spencer never actually got around to introducing himself. And, though William was fairly good at deducing peoples lives, he couldn't guess at the younger boy's name without a glance at the back of his tidy whities. "Ssssspectacles."

Mycroft's smile fell into a pit of exasperation. "Spectacles."

"Yes." William replied with an unusual amount of confidence, as if he was fairly certain that could pass as the correct name. "I found him getting a beating near the library."

"Oh, Dear Brother Whose Idiocy Knows No Bounds, This is auntie Nose And uncle Baldy again, isn't it?..." Mycroft sighed wearily, running his fingers through his scab-brown hair. It was already thinning at the front, like a carpet gone threadbare after too many nights spent pacing. "I know, remembering names is tedious and boring, but you must learn to call people by their given name. It shows respect."

"Spectacles doesn't mind." William mumbled to his shoes.

"I really don't." Squeaked Spencer. It wasn't really anyone's fault that he didn't remember to introduce himself. In this context, referring to someone by their most prominent feature wasn't so much rude as... efficient. Besides, he's been called worse.

"Fine. Go on." He sighed, waving them off. William pulled Spencer away at the first syllable of his brother's exasperated defeat. " But we will talk about this later, brother!"

"That's what I was trying to avoid." The boy mumbled as he swung open the window and broke into his own bedroom with the practiced ease of a trained criminal. Spencer hauled himself after with all the grace of a paraplegic gazelle. "That was my brother. He's perhaps the most insufferable pompous fat arse you'll ever meet. But he is going into government, so I suppose it's somewhat of a prerequisite. Sit there on the bed, I'll get the first aid kit"

"He didn't seem that bad..." Spencer clumsily tiptoed through the random detritus scattered about the room, sighing in relief when he made it to the bed without toppling any of the carefully sculpted towers of books and boxes. He idly surveyed the room while William searched through heaps of clothes. It was a large room, but the clutter made it seem small and cozy. There wasn't a bare space of wall, either. Every inch of space was taken up by posters and diagrams and pages out of books and handwritten notes, and they all seemed to be tacked up with whatever sharp object he had at hand.

"Found it. It doesn't seem like you'll need bandages, thank god. I always run out at an alarming rate. I should add it to the weekly grocery list." William said, mostly to himself, as he took a seat next to the younger boy.

There was a concentrated silence as William cleaned up Spencer's cheek. During the procedure Spencer felt, not unpleasantly, like a blood cell sandwiched between a microscope slide and a cover slip. William dabbed and disinfected him with the utmost care, but without a trace of sentiment or intimacy.

"Is that... honey?" Spencer asked curiously, as his impromptu nurse swirled his finger in a small jar.

"Yes, it'll keep it from scarring." He replied, licking the residue off his fingertips.

"Oh... Of course, it would. I don't know why I didn't think of that before. Honey and beeswax are incredible preservatives, after all. I've heard some reports of small animals crawling into a hive and being found weeks later still looking fresh. Which is quite amazing, considering honey is just re-regurgitated bee vomit." William hummed, carefully applying a band-aid.

"Bees are incredible creatures. They communicate through dance, you know. You've got to respect a creature whose entire existence relies on their dancing abilities."

Suddenly, Spencer realized something. "You're a dancer." He didn't know how it took him so long. Every third poster on the walls were of the greatest ballets or the most prestigious dancers. Not to mention, he had the lean musculature required to comfortably lift ballerinas as well as bullies.

"And you have eyes. Turn this way... yeah that's bruised." He pulled out another small jar as well as a brush. "The cut, you could pass off as a random scratch. A papercut. A... mockingbird attack. But when it's paired with a bruise... well, it tells a pretty obvious tale. Luckily, we have a similar skin tone."

Spencer examined the anatomical diagram on the far wall and wondered quietly to himself as William brushed a concealer over the bruise on his cheek. Finally, he asked the question which he had been meaning to on the sidewalk before he got swept this strange whirlwind of events. "Why are you doing this?"

"I just told yo-"

"No, I mean... why are you helping me at all?"

William snapped the first aid kit shut. "You obviously didn't deserve their hospitality. I figured, we have a few things in common. An alliance might prove to be mutually beneficial." He said in reasonable, precisely measured syllables.

"You just beat up three guys because you thought I'd make a good friend? You don't even know my name." Spencer asked incredulously. He'd always hoped for a friend. Or just... someone who didn't treat him like an alien, really. He never thought a dancer twice his age would just drop out of the sky and fill the position without asking.

"Friendships are for insecure plebeians who fear using a public restroom without company." William scoffed, then tossed the first aid kit back into the same pile of clothes that he pulled it from. He loomed a little too close and continued speaking in a low murmur, as though telling a dark secret. "I'm proposing an alliance. I watch your back, you watch mine. This world isn't as bright and optimistic as you'd like to believe. I can offer a little security."

Spencer shifted away to regain some of his personal space. "Alliance implies reciprocity. You're obviously capable of watching your own back. What do you want from me?"

William got up and opened a door, gesturing for Spencer to go through it. Spencer noted that if this was a horror movie, he'd walk through it to find a room full of corpses, sliced up and hanging like slaughtered pigs. Then William would lean down close to his ear and say your life. But, this wasn't a horror movie. So, all Spencer saw was a tastefully lit hallway coated with expensive, yet subtle wallpaper. And William didn't whisper cryptic one-liners in his ear. He just led the boy out of the house and answered his question. "I'm new to this country. A guide would be useful. I tried to make sense of the bus system the other day, nearly ended up in california."

They laughed. Reid left. And William still never caught his name.

* * *

><p>Heya! I know I should probably be working on my other stories, but I've been going through a Criminal Minds kick and realized that Sherly and Spence had to be friends at some point. So I jotted down a brief story line between kid Sherly and Spence and the current series (albeit slightly altered to suit my Johnlockish sensibilities). Unfortunately, it's a rather rough path for our favorite consulting detective. But it ends well.<p>

I might as well tell you where I plan on going with this. I'm going to make this a sort of three (maybe four) part series. This part will cover Spencer and William's friendship, mostly through Spencer's eyes. It'll basically be a collection of one-shots with no particular storyline.

The others will cover other parts of Sherlock's life, how he became Sherlock and whatever happened to William.

If you've got any thoughts or suggestions, please review!


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